


Ecstasy

by inkstainedwretch



Category: Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: Blood Play, Canon-Typical Violence, Daniel is Mortal, Drugs, M/M, Surrogacy if you squint, The Eighties, Vampire Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 16:09:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13103799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkstainedwretch/pseuds/inkstainedwretch
Summary: Armand is five hundred years old, and evidently he's never heard of party drugs. He discovers them the hard way, and despite it all, Daniel can't bring himself to complain.(Set during Queen of the Damned, while Daniel is still mortal.)





	Ecstasy

**Author's Note:**

> I have not read any VC books past Body Thief. I also know basically nothing about illicit drugs.

“Now, stand here,” Armand says, and he’s not even looking at me, “don’t move, don’t speak, and above all, no matter what happens, do not try to stop me.”

I just nod, wondering what in the hell we’re supposed to be doing. I know what’s about to happen, at least in theory, but Armand hasn’t ever actually shown me what he does when he hunts. I mean, when I’m not being used as bait, anyway. It’s been a couple of nights since he last fed – and believe me, I know for _sure_ he hasn’t left the house.

Two nights ago, he cut his hair, and then he set up a camera pointed at him while he slept. Then, he had me stay up all day switching out the stack of video tapes every time one of them ran out of film. I was tired to the point of delirium by the time he woke up, with his hair all grown back, which was fucking creepy. Then, he spent all of last night just watching the tapes, watching his hair grow, which was even creepier. He didn’t move even once, he just _sat_ there, like a weird statue.

So yeah, he’s probably hungry. I can see a little bit more of his veins than usual, and his cheeks are a little hollow. So, maybe that’s why he didn’t go out past the main city, like he usually does. Maybe that’s why we’re in the middle of the busiest entertainment district on the island, behind a fucking dance club.

“She wants it badly,” he says, because he’s probably been reading me this whole time. “I heard her the second we reached the block.”

I don’t have to ask who, but sure enough, a woman in a highlighter-yellow jacket walks around the corner of the building. Her makeup is sweat-streaked, like she’s been dancing for hours, and her eyes are completely bloodshot. She’s actually really pretty, even when she sees Armand and starts crying. She doesn’t say anything, she just cries, and she _runs_ at him, throwing her arms around him.

He’s got her up against the wall in half a second, and she keeps grabbing at him, trying to hold him tighter and tighter, and the only sound I hear from her is a breathless, shaking sort of sobbing, half-drowned by the club music behind us. I hear him, though, draining the life from her, rough sounds of satisfaction muffled by her skin. Familiar sounds, the kind I hear when he’s riding me, when he’s got his teeth in my neck.

He lets her go, and with his sleeve he wipes a smear of her makeup from his cheek.

“Go home,” he says. “I’m going to bury her.”

“…is there a reason you brought me here for his?” I ask.

“You keep acting like you want the gift,” he said.

Then he’s just gone, and I’m used to that, but it feels like he left mid-sentence. He does this a lot, gives me an answer that doesn’t really tell me anything. I shrug and start walking home, knowing it isn’t gonna take long before he’s done. At his speed, he might even beat me home.

But, what the hell? Was this supposed to teach me something? The fuck did he mean, “acting”? I act like I want it because I do want it. God, I want it more than anything. Hearing the story of it from Louis was one thing, but seeing Armand, this gorgeous, brutal thing…to have even a tenth of it would be incredible. Every time he lets me have some, every time I taste his blood, I hope it’ll be enough to do it. I know it won’t work, it never has, but still.

If showing me this was supposed to somehow deter me, it was…a little late. I’ve seen him kill maybe a hundred times, now, and even before that, he was drinking from me. Seeing him feed, seeing the unhinged sort of desire in him, the way he just takes and takes and _takes_ …fuck, I want it. It’s so messed up, I know, but I want him to be the one to do it. What happens after, that’s up to him, but if I’m gonna die anyway, I want him to do it.

When I get home, he’s not there, so I grab a soda from the fridge and wait for him. The camera is still set up in his room, and frankly, _fuck that_ , so I grab the book I’ve been reading from the side table and lay down on the sofa. It’s weird, these points when he’s gone, little gaps of silence where I start to wonder what I’m even doing, anymore. What’s the point of me being here, really?

I feel the little glass vial on my necklace, the proof he gave me that it’s all real, all I had to do was break it... Did he mean it, though? Did he mean anything he said? If Louis was telling the truth – if Lestat’s book had any truth to it, for that matter – Armand doesn’t have much history of being straightforward with people. Maybe I am wasting my time. Fuck, that idea hurts. I’ve almost started believing him, when he says he loves me.

It’s almost an hour before Armand gets home, and it only occurs to me how long that is, for him, when I hear him arrive. There’s a sort of crash from the kitchen, and it doesn’t really scare me, because seriously, who else would it be? Then, I actually get up and go into the kitchen, and I see him looking at the patterned tile on the floor with an expression of absolute wonder.

“Such perfect geometry,” he traces his fingertips along the edges of a tile. “It’s almost like a vampire made these. The machines you have today…”

He gets distracted by something, and when he stands up and grabs the hair crimper he’d left plugged in on the counter, I can see how dark his eyes are. With one hand, he holds the handle of it, and with the other he feeds a curl of his hair between the metal plates. It looks kind of ridiculous, when he lets go, but he just stares at it, turning it back and forth.

“Like a metal roof,” he murmurs. “So perfectly unnatural. Everything is so perfectly, precisely synthetic, now. Even your food is manufactured. …even your pleasure.”

He drops the crimper, and the weight unplugs the cord so it clatters to the floor. He kicks it behind him, and in doing so nearly knocks over the microwave (the sixth he’s gone through) sitting precariously on the crowded space behind him. Only now does he look at me, and his hand runs over the laminate of the countertop in lazy circles. His pupils are _enormous_.

“She had a bottle in her pocket,” he says. “It fell out. There weren’t too many pills, but they were all different shapes, different colors, all blue and white and pink…I wonder what color she swallowed.”

Oh, _fuck_. Okay, now I’m freaking out. I knew alcohol had an effect on the blood, but it never seemed to do much to him, because he’s so strong. He’s like five hundred years old…and apparently, he’s never heard of party drugs. Oh, man. Is this gonna kill him? Probably not. Hopefully not.

“Your glasses,” he says, walking slowly up to me. “They just play with the light. Little green-violet shadows on the lenses.”

His hand lands on my arm, and then he gasps, and I’m really scared for a second before he slides it up to my shoulder.

“Oh, you’re soft,” he murmurs, and now both of his hands are on me. “You’re so warm. So alive.”

He wraps his arms around me, buries his face in my chest, the way he has _never_ done before. I’m honestly afraid, now. Whoever this is holding me, inhaling deeply and running their hands over my back, it is not Armand. I don’t dislike him, but he’s not Armand.

“Your heart is racing,” he whispers, and one hand comes up to my hair. “Are you afraid, or do you want more?”

…I mean, who said the two had to be mutually exclusive?

He laughs out loud, because apparently he can still read my mind, and then he looks up and smiles at me like I’m something worth smiling at.

“Oh, I love you,” he says, and then he pulls me into a slow, heated kiss.

His body still feels warm from the kill, almost too warm, for how long it’s been. He makes these little gasping noises between kisses, like this is somehow new to him. I pull him closer, and he moans into my mouth, and when I keep touching him, keep moving my hands, he just keeps doing it. Oh my god, this is terrifying. I can handle it when he’s telling me what to do, holding me down, teasing me, even manhandling me like a ragdoll. This responsiveness, this _affection_ …I have no idea what to do with this.

Apparently, he does, because now he’s got me by the arms and we’re headed to the bedroom. Familiar territory, but I’m not used to the way he’s clinging to me. Then he pulls me down on top of him, all his limbs wrapped around me even though we’re still completely clothed, and he kisses me less slowly, more hungrily, more like I’m used to.

“Fuck me,” he sighs, running a hand through my hair, “and do it right this time.”

I just blink for a second. “What…”

“Like you mean it,” he grips the front of my shirt and pulls me even closer. “Like you want it. Like you want me.”

He grabs my face in both hands and kisses me hard, rolling his body up against mine. For one entire second, my mind goes completely blank. I know right fucking then that I’m gonna die. Not tonight, tomorrow night, when he remembers what I’m about to do.

I yank his shirt off as quickly as I can manage, and while I work on his jeans, I kiss his neck roughly, even biting a little, for all the good it does. Even knowing that he’s currently out of his mind on god knows what, I’m still surprised that he lets me do it. Undressing myself is more complicated than it needs to be, with the way he won’t let me go, but I can’t find it in me to complain. I already know this is _never_ going to happen again.

I lay down on top of him, skin on skin, and I work a hand into his hair and kiss him deeply. The noise he makes into my mouth is obscene, and even though I know he doesn’t need to breathe, he’s gasping for breath between kisses. He’s still all wrapped around me, rolling against me, and whatever’s in his system is making him go absolutely nuts when I touch him. His voice is higher than usual, breathless to the point of being almost whiny, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like it.

When I bring my hand up to his mouth, he all but swallows my fingers. I feel the heat of his blood, the vibration of his voice, and even when he opens his mouth, he drags his tongue across them, painting them red from where he cut it on his fang. Even though they’re dripping, he follows me when I move them away, trying to get them back into his mouth. I kiss him knowing he’s probably going to bite my tongue, hoping he does, shivering at the way the taste of blood saturates his mouth.

It’s a gamble, when I start with two fingers, but it’s one that pays off. His nails dig into my shoulders, and he breaks the kiss when his back bends upward, so much that he actually lifts me up a little. We come back down, and he rolls with me, his voice not stopping for a second. He grabs me by the neck and leans up to bite my lower lip, licking the little cut he makes and then sucking on it, drawing little stinging beads of blood up past the skin.

“ _Oh_ , you taste good,” he sighs. “You don’t know how hard it is not to just kill you. Every time you fuck me, when I get a taste of you, it’s not enough.”

He kisses me again, and now he does bite my tongue, but I sort of encourage him. It hurts, sure, but pain is something that becomes much more appealing once you’ve met Armand. The hungry noises he makes, the way he pulls me close and shivers a little underneath me, that makes the sharp slice on my tongue more than worth it. I also like how talkative he’s being, with the drugs in his system, so while I can, I play along.

“Why don’t you do it?” I ask, and I slide a third finger in beside the first two. “Why am I still alive, if you want to kill me so badly?”

For a second, his head just turns sideways, and he hums shakily at the new sensation. When he looks at me, though…the only word I can think of is _yearning_.

“You don’t want to die,” he shakes his head softly. “You want me to kill you, but you don’t want to die. If you did…I don’t think… _fuck_ , that feels good.”

He starts moving his hips with me again, but my focus is on what he’s saying. I’ve never heard him say anything like that, about how he wouldn’t kill me if I asked. Because that’s what he was about to say, before he caught himself.

“You couldn’t do it,” I kiss him again, so he can taste me. “If you could, I’d be dead by now.”

“Shut up,” he hisses, and then his head snaps to the side. “Daniel… _oh_ , make me come. Just once, just like this, don’t stop.”

I glance downward and figure I can do him one better than that. I kiss his mouth, his jaw, his neck, his chest, watching him jump every time while I make my way down his stomach. I practically have to peel his hands off of me while I move, but once he figures out what I’m trying to do, he isn’t as bad. When I take him into my mouth, he tries to grab my hair with both hands, which doesn’t really work. He looks down at me and huffs, looking annoyed.

“Your hair is too short,” he mutters. I manage not to laugh.

From there, it doesn’t take long, and with my mouth working him above and my hand working him below, he throws his head back with a gasp. Soon enough, I feel him shaking, he’s shouting into the open air, and I can taste him, rich and hot in my mouth. I hum around him as I work him through it, feeling the sparks of pleasure his blood always gives me, but there’s something different this time. There’s a sort of softness to it, enough for me to really feel it now, and I feel a little giddy when I let him go, just a little bit lightheaded.

Holy shit. Well, this should be interesting.

He’s grabby again, hauling me back up to him with a whine, and while I can still think clearly enough, I scramble for the nightstand drawer and pull out a condom. No matter how out of it he is right now, he’s never gonna forgive me if I don’t. He doesn’t make it easy on me, but I manage.

When it’s on, I slide into him with a sigh. He says something I don’t really hear, but his legs winding around me give me very clear directions. I can only just remember his instruction from earlier, and I move with as much force as I can manage. He’s holding onto me _really_ tightly, though, almost like he’s forgotten his own strength, or forgotten I’m only human, or something.

He says that same thing again, and I realize the reason I don’t understand it is he’s not speaking English. It doesn’t sound like French, either. I look down at him and brush his hair out of his face, and he’s looking at me, but I don’t know if he’s really seeing me. Maybe he’s just forgotten it’s me.

“What?” I ask, and he blinks, and then he almost looks disappointed.

“Right,” he mutters, and then he cuts his neck with a nail and shoves my head down toward it.

I don’t question it. I probably should, but I don’t. I just clamp my mouth over the cut and drink as much of him as I can. I hear him sighing, almost whispering, with his hand on the back of my neck to keep me close.

“Take it,” he gasps, and his legs tighten around me so we’re moving together. “Take it, it’s yours.”

A shiver goes all the way through me, a jump of excitement, because if he means it, this might really be it. He’ll be furious tomorrow night, but that isn’t going to stop me. You can’t take it back once it’s done.

It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt. I’ve had a taste of him before, sure, but this is unreal. It’s gotta be the drugs, because I feel indescribably happy, like my body is lighting up with electric sparks. Everywhere he touches me, his skin feels soft, the velvet squeeze of his body around me is so perfectly warm, and his voice…I still don’t know what he’s saying, but _fuck_ , I’ve never heard him get this loud.

I know for a fact his nails have cut my back, because I can feel the drops of blood running down, but it’s _hot_ , and it’s _good_ , and I’ve never taken this much from him before. It’s vicious, the way I keep digging my tongue into the cut he made, the way I bite down on the skin around it, and I can feel some of the blood running down the side of my mouth, because of how deeply I’m drinking him.

I’ve never felt so predatory. For all the strange things I’ve done since I ran into Armand, I’ve never felt like anything but a terrified radio reporter, one who’s in way over his head. Right now, though, out of my mind, blood dripping from my mouth, Armand writhing and shouting senselessly, _breathlessly_ under me…I feel like a monster. And I _like_ it.

I feel him start shaking, he clenches tight around me, and if I wasn’t so greedy, so determined to drink as much as I possibly could, I’d look at his face. He says something, pants it into my ear, and whatever it is, he says it over and over until finally, he lapses back into English.

“ _Please, please_ …” and then it’s back to nonsense, as far as I’m concerned.

That’s nearly the end of it. I’ve never heard that word from his lips, not _once_. I almost let his neck go, just to see his expression, because clearly, he is _wrecked_. But, I can’t let this go. I can’t give it up, it’s too good. It’s too much. I am _never_ going to get this chance, again. So instead, I bite down harder. I grip tightly at his hips and go as hard as I can. I feel the soft slide of his skin, the tear of his nails in my back and shoulder, the hiss of his breath on my ear – cold now, he’s completely cold. I can’t see anything but the darkness of his hair. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this good.

I can tell when he gets close, because for a second he’s quiet, and then it’s this crescendo, this repetition of something I don’t know. It almost sounds like an incantation, one that gets louder and louder until he’s just shouting wordlessly, clenching hard around me as his hips snap up to meet me. I can taste it. It’s like trying to drink a thunderstorm. Fuck, oh fuck, _Armand_ …

It hits me like a blow, and it lingers, hot and slow as molten metal. I nearly choke. Every sound I make is buried in his neck, but I am not quiet. I think I might be dying for a second, because I can’t seem to catch my breath. But god, what a way to die. It’s so good. It’s inhumanly good. I don’t realize until my eyes open again that I’ve got tears in them.

I feel almost delirious, but I know I have to let him go. I lick the cut before it closes itself, and to my surprise it takes its time. How much did I drink? Armand is still breathing, but his eyes are shut. He isn’t clinging to me, which is just as well. I let him go, shift back and clean myself up almost reflexively. When I come back, he’s still quiet. He looks almost peaceful, and a hell of a lot closer to it than when he’s asleep.

Nothing feels real, anymore. It’s like a dream, like the woozy dehydration that happens when I’ve been awake for days on end. But, it’s nice. I lay down beside him again and run my hand over his hair. It’s so soft, like curls of silk. His cheek is so smooth, and as my fingertips run across it, I see him smile. It’s beautiful. God, I love him so much.

I move closer, wrap an arm around him and turn him so I can hold him. This isn’t how it normally goes, but I’m not thinking about that right now. He says nothing. He doesn’t even open his eyes. He does wrap his arms around me, though, which I take as a good sign. When I kiss him, he sighs softly, and he slides up a little, his hands making their way to my shoulders. We stay that way for a while, lying together in the quiet, and everything seems like it’s dusted with gold.

Then, his hands move up to my hair, and he jumps. He all but flinches back, his eyes fly open, and I can see that the cut on his neck is finally gone. He looks so _awake_ , and dimly I realize I probably drank all that pharmaceutical bliss out of his system, or at least most of it. It makes me smile, even though he looks like he’s just been dunked into cold water.

“…are you okay?” I ask.

I shouldn’t have. He puts his face back into the mask of indifference I’m used to. I’ve done something wrong, but I’ve done so many things wrong, I don’t know which one upset him. It hurts, deep in my chest, because I’m still all sentimental. I keep that in mind, because it keeps hurting, especially when he brings a hand up to his neck, feeling where the cut used to be. He doesn’t look happy. You learn to read him, after a while.

“It won’t work,” he says.

I don’t have to ask what. Fuck, do we have to have that conversation right now? But, he’s changing the subject. I reach up to pet his hair again, and it says a hell of a lot that he lets me.

“Did I hurt you?” I ask, and he can probably see how out of it I still am, because he laughs.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he shakes his head.

He grins, and it strikes me that he hasn’t had a taste of me all night.

“You aren’t going to remember much of this, are you?” he says softly.

I decide not to comment.

“Why did we do this?” I ask, feeling my eyes suddenly difficult to keep open.

“Which part?” It looks like he’s going to start laughing again any second now.

“When you took me with you,” I mumble. “You said I act like I want the gift. The hell does that mean?”

He gives me a considering look, and then he speaks so quietly, I have to lean in closer just to hear him.

“You needed to see how it was done,” he says.

That makes no sense to me, but I don’t really care anymore. I can feel my awareness fading, even as I hear him laughing, again. I feel cold, soft lips on my own, and then he’s leaving. Maybe he’s going to hunt, again.

Silently, I hope he’ll be back by the time I wake up. Underneath that, wound up in threads of drug-fueled hopeless optimism, I pray that he’s wrong.   

I fall asleep with his voice ringing in my head, whispering nonsense words with the fervor of a dying man.


End file.
